The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1887-12-27


as was Adam, in full manhood at the start
without the Introductory feebleness OF infancy.
No, mol Childhood was to be honored by that
advent. He must have a chi'ds light limbs
and childs dimpled hand, and q child
beaming eye, and a child's fiaxen hair and
babyhood was to be honorad for all time to
come, and a cradle was to mean more than q
grave. Mighty God! May the reflection OF
that one chld's face be seen in all infantile Ia
ces. Enough have all those fathers and moth
ers on hand if they have child III the house.
A throne, q crown, sceptre, o Kingdom under
charge. Be careful how you strike him across
the head, iarring the brain. What you say TO
him will be centennial and millenial, and
hundred years and q thousand years will not
stop the echo and re-echo. Do not say, 1t Is
only child.'' Rather say, at is only an i'm
mortal" 1t is only masterpiece of Jehovah.
1t is only a being that shall outlive sun and
moon and star, and ages quadrillennial. God
has infinite resources and he can give presents
of great value but when he wants to give the
richest possible gift to q household he looks
around all the worlds and all the universe and
then gives child. The greatest present that
God ever gave our world he gave aDont 1851
years ago, and he gave it on a Christmas night,
and it was of such value that heaven adjourn
ed for recess and came down and broke
through the clouds to look at it. Yea, IN all
ages God has honored childhood. He makes
almost every picture a failure unless there be a
child either playing on the floor, or looking
through the window, or seated on the lap
gazing into the face of its mother. 1t was q
child in Naaman's kitchen that told the great
Syrian warrior where he might go and get
cured of the leprosy, which at his seventh
plunge in the Jordan, was left at the bottom
OF the river. 1t was to the cradle OF leaves III
which a child was laid rocked by the Nile that
God called the attention of history 1t was
sick child that evoked Christ's curative SYM
pathies. 1t was child that Christ set in the
midst of of the squabbling disciples to teach
the lesson of humility. We are informed that
wolf and leopard and lion shall be yet SO
domesticated that a little child shall lead
them. A child decided Waterloo, showing
the army of Butcher how they
could take q short cut through the fields
when, ii the old road had been followed, the
Prussian general would have come up too late
to save the destinies of Europe. Itwasa child
that decided Gettysburg, he having overheard
two Confederate genarals in q conversation in
which they decided to march for Gettysburg
instead of Harrisburg, and this reported to
Governor Curtin, the federal forces started to
meet their opponents at Gettysburg. And the
child of today is to decide all the great battles,
make all the laws, settle all the destinies and
usher in the worlds salvation or destruction
Men, women, nations, all earth and all heaven,
behold the child! Is there any velvet SO soft
as child's check? Is there any sky so blue
as child's eye? Is there any music SO sweet
as the child's voice? Is there any plume so
wavy as q child's hair?
Notice also that in this Bible night scene
men kneeling before the divine infant? Not
Doors, not ignoramuses but Caspar, Belthasar
and helchior, men who knew all that was 10
be known They were the Isaac NeWtons and
Herschels and Faradays of their time. Their
alchemy was the forerunner OF our sublime
chemistry, their astrology the mother OF our
magnificent astronomy. They had studied
stars, studied metals, studied physiology,
studied everything. And when l see these
scientists bowling before the beautiful babe
IN of
telescopes and microscopes, and all the Leyden
jars, and all the electric batteries and all the
observatories, and all the universities snail
bow to Jesus. 1t is much that way already.
Where is the college that does not
have morning prayers, thus bowling at the
manager? Who have been the greatest ply
sicians? Omitting the names of the living,
lest we should be invidious, have we not had
among them Christian men like our own 90
seph c. Hutchinson, and Rush, and Valentine
Mott, and Abercrombie, and Alternately VINO
have been our greatest scientists? Joseph
Henry, who lived and died in the faith OF the
gospel, and Agassiz, who, standing with his
students among the hills, took off his hat and
said: young gentlemen, before we study
these rocks let us pray for wisdom to the God
who made the rocks" Today the greatest
doctors and lawyers of Brooklyn and New
York, and Of all this land G and of
religion, and are not ashamed to say so before
iuries and legislatures and senates All geol-
ogy viii vet bow before the Rock of Ages. All
botany viii yet worship the Rose of Sharon.
All astronomy will yet recognize the Star Of
Bethlehem; and physiology and anatomy will
join hands and say: We must by the help of
God get the human race up to the perfect
nerve and perfect muscle, and perfect brain,
and perfect form of that perfect child, before
whom nigh twenty hundred years ago CasDar,
and Belthasar and MelchioI bent their tired
knees in worship.
Behold, also, in that first Christmas night
that God honored the fields. Come in, shep-
erd boys, to Bethlehem and see the child.
"No," they say 1--WE are not dressed good
enough to come in" eyes, you are, come
in" Sure enough, the storms and the night
dew and the brambles have made rough work
with their apparel. but none have better
right to come in. they were the flrst 10 near
the music of that Christmas night. The first
announcement of a Saviour's birth was made
to those men in the fields. There were wise
acres that night in Bethlehem and Jerusalem
snoring in deep sleep, and there were salarled
officers of government who hearing of it,
afterward may have thought that they ought to
have had the first news of such great
event, some one dismounting from
swift camel at their door and knocking till at
some sentinel's question, who comes there?"
the great ones of the palace might have been
told of the celestial arrival. No; the shep-
herds heard the first two bars of the music, the
first in the major key and the last in the sub
dued minor: "Glory to God in the highest,
ana on Cartn peace, Soou WIN w Hleii. An,
YES the fields were hon0red. The old shep-
herds with plaid and crook have for the most
mart vanished, but we have grazing our
United States pasture fields and prairie
about forty-fve million sheep, and all
their keepers ought to follow the shepherds of
my text, and all those who toll i'll the fields,
ali wine-dressers all orchardists, all husband
men. Not only that Christmas light, but all
up and down the worlds history God has
been honoring the fields. Nearly all the Mes
sahs of reform, and literature, and eloquence,
and law, and benevolence, have come from
the fields. Washington from the fields. JEFF
ferson from the fields. The presidential mar
tyrs. Garfield and Lincoln, from the fields.
Henry Clay from the fields. Daniel Webster
from the fields. Martin Luther from the
fields. And before this world is right, the
overlooking populations of our crowded cities,
will have to take to the fields Instead of ten
merchants in rivalry as to who shall sell that
one apple, we want at least eight of them
to go out and raise apples. Instead
of ten merchants desiring 10 sell that one
bushel of wheat, we want at least eight OF them
to go out and raise wheat. The world wants
now more hard hands, moro bronzed cheeks,
more muscular arms. To the tields God
honored them when he woke up the sheperd
bv the midnight anthem, and he will, While